: The ‘Indian Schindler’ Helped Several Jewish Families Escape Nazi Germany #IndiaNEWS #History The life of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist and member of the Nazi Party who saved the lives

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The ‘Indian Schindler’ Helped Several Jewish Families Escape Nazi Germany #IndiaNEWS #History
The life of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist and member of the Nazi Party who saved the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories, was immortalised in the Steven Spielberg 1993 epic historical drama called the Schindler’s List. (Above image of Princess Catherine Duleep Singh and Jewish family courtesy Peter Bance/Instagram/V&A Musuem) 
While there were others like Oskar Schindler, who saved members of the Jewish community from the horrors of the Holocaust, one personality who is often forgotten is Princess Catherine Duleep Singh, the daughter of Maharaja Duleep Singh and his first wife, Bamba Müller.
Considered the ‘Indian Schindler’, Catherine saved many Jewish families from the clutches of Nazi Germany by paving their way for a safe journey to England in secrecy, giving them funds and even housing them at her property in Buckhingamshire during the course of World War II.
An icon of the LGBTQ movement and a strong proponent of the Suffrage Movement in the United Kingdom, Catherine lived a remarkable life, which not many know about.


 










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Royal Patronage
The youngest son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Maharaja Duleep Singh was only five years old when he ascended the throne to the Sikh Empire in 1843.
Successive defeats in the Anglo-Sikh Wars, however, allowed the British East India Company to annex the Sikh Empire and depose the young Maharaja, who was barely 10 years old at the time. Cutting him off from his former subjects to prevent any sort of chance of a rally of support to reinstate him, the British put him into the care of surgeon Dr John Login in Fatehgarh.
As a matter of British policy, he was to be culturally anglicised, and grew up living and learning under missionaries. By March 1854, he was exiled to the United Kingdom.
During his time in England, Duleep Singh, who was allowed to keep the honorific ‘Maharaja’, grew close to Queen Victoria. In fact, such was Queen Victoria’s fondness of Maharaja Duleep Singh that she became godmother to his children.
Catherine was born on 27 October 1871 in Knightsbridge, London, and was the second daughter of Maharaja Duleep Singh, the last Emperor of the Sikh Empire, and his first wife, Bamba Müller.
But the Maharaja faced difficulty in returning to India. While he was attempting to go back, his daughters Sophia, Catherine, Bamba, were given accommodation in Faraday House, Hampton Court Palace, by Queen Victoria.
Maharaja Duleep Singh eventually passed away in 1893 at the age of 55 in Paris, seven years after his last attempt at visiting Punjab failed.

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